Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate
by savvyliterate
Summary: The Doctor hadn't been trying to look for a way to rescue River Song from the Library. With all the centuries on Trenzalore and his subsequent regeneration, the debilitating pain had managed to compartmentalize itself away in the portion of his brain reserved for bow ties, tweed, and Ponds. But suddenly the opportunity was suddenly there, and he couldn't pass it up.
1. Chapter 1

This fic is a combination of two prompts for the R/D Ficathon, along with some ideas about the 12th Doctor, Clara, and River that's been kicking around in my head.

 **Prompts:** "12 realizes he can save River from the Library, but in order to do so, he has to upload someone else in her place" and "Clara thought the Doctor was too alien to be married in the traditional sense, and imagined he and River spent a lot of time talking about quantum physics or playing chess, not doing… married people things. She's not altogether happy to find out she's wrong."

The title is from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese."

* * *

 _Chapter 1_

"Clara! I have a problem."

Clara didn't bother looking up from the essays she was marking as the TARDIS materialized in the corner space she left cleared in her flat and the Doctor burst out, coat flapping about him. She fervently hoped that whatever problem the Doctor had wasn't as bad as the time he ran out of the TARDIS holding an alien egg and ruined her best sheets and her tea kettle in the process of ensuring that it hatched. OK, so it had been a cute baby. _Still_. She had liked that kettle.

He began pacing in front of her desk, and she scratched a note on the essay. "Do I have time to finish marking this?" She waved her pen at the paper in front of her. When he didn't respond, she shrugged and went back to work.

"I actually need your advice," he finally admitted.

"About what?"

"About sex."

Clara's hand slipped, leaving a giant red mark across the essay as she dropped both it and the pen. "I'm sorry, _what_?"

"I said I need your advice about sex." He finally faced her, those high cheekbones flushed with color. "You really need your hearing checked."

"Oh no. No, no, no, no. No." Clara pushed back from her desk. "There are limits to friendship, and you just hit it. No, not hit it. Bowled across it, and that doesn't even count the time you informed Danny that my hips weren't suited for childbearing and that he should consider alternatives."

"Well, they really aren't. All skinny and narrow and small. You'd really have quite the issue there. There's some really safe Caesarean surgeries in the 27th century, and you wouldn't even have a-"

" _Doctor!_ " Clara pinched the bridge of her nose and wondered if she had a new bottle of paracetamol in the loo. "Back to the issue at hand. I am _not_ giving you sex advice. I will do a great many things for you, but you're on your own in the bedroom. Which, how is it even possible?"

"What? Sex? You're a teacher, you should know about it."

"I do," Clara said through gritted teeth. "But you're an alien!"

Now the Doctor goggled at her. "Aliens do have sex, Clara. You've seen that often enough."

"Naturally, considering that procreation is a thing that happens! But _you_ don't."

He scoffed. "Of course I have! I was married! Twice officially, we won't count the others."

"But that still doesn't mean you've had sex."

"One can't be married to River Song and not have sex!" With that, his cheeks turned scarlet and he stalked into her kitchen.

Clara stood by her desk for a few shocked moments, digesting what the Doctor had just admitted. She swallowed, rubbed her eyes, and suddenly missed Danny with a sharp ache that she hadn't felt in months. She followed the Doctor into the kitchen to find him tinkering with various old appliances she found in charity shops and brought home just for that purpose. "You're not kidding, are you?"

The Doctor grunted as he methodically took apart a hand blender.

"I didn't think … I thought you two just sat about discussing quantum physics or playing chess. You can't even stand to hug people or even hold their hand! How could you possibly have sex?" She shook her head and leaned on the counter, watching him work. "Doctor, I'm not the right person to talk about this with."

"Well, whom am I supposed to talk about it with?"

"You know loads of people! You probably know Freud himself!"

He pulled his sonic out of his pocket and waved it at her before using it on the blender. "I did teach a form of hypnotism to him …"

"See? Quite frankly, Doctor, I am not in any sort of position to discuss sex with you."

"But, surely you and P.E. …"

"Don't even _finish_ that sentence," Clara cut in, her cheeks nearly as red the lining of his jacket.

The Doctor sighed and inspected one of the parts he held. "How can I be with River if I can't even touch her?"

Clara started to give a flippant response, but the look in his eyes as he avoided her gaze gave her enough pause that she hesitated. She'd only seen it once before, in his bow tie and tweed days, when she informed him about meeting an echo of River Song just before they first went to Trenzalore. He hid his pain and longing for his wife so well that he barely spoke about her until he'd given into tears at the mention of her name. She swallowed. Hard. "Doctor, is this some sort of convoluted way of telling me that River's alive?"

"I may have found a way to get her out of the Library," he admitted. "To do that, well … there's something I have to do first. But once I do, she'll be there. And alive. And well … It's River."

"Maybe we should worry more about getting her out of the Library than worrying about the sex part," she gently told him.

The Doctor abandoned his fiddling and shoved his hands into his pockets. "But that's just it. With the timelines the way they are, she can't go back to bow tie me. Well, she could, but there's not many parts of his timeline she can revisit now without rewriting everything. So there's me. What can I offer her other than a broken man who's too skittish to touch her?"

Clara worried her lip and prayed fervently that she didn't somehow make things worse. After the previous Christmas, she and the Doctor had finally gotten past all their secrets and developed a true friendship that was akin to master and apprentice. Her gaze fell on the Doctor's left hand and the two rings he wore there. A thick signet ring and plain band beneath. "What're the rings for? You put them on shortly after you regenerated. You never said why."

The Doctor glanced down at the rings and fiddled them absently. "They're just rings. They don't mean anything."

"Bollocks."

"You shouldn't swear like that. I thought teachers weren't supposed to swear?"

Clara snatched the Doctor's hand and tapped the signet ring. "This is pretty. Which, yes, you're a vain man. I get that. But this," she slid her finger over the plain band beneath, "is your standard wedding band you can pick up in any shop. You're not human, but this is a very human custom. You never wore this before you regenerated, but you got it from somewhere. You put it on because it felt right. You keep it on because it didn't stop feeling right."

He snatched his hand back from her, scowling.

"Love it when I'm right. Go on, then. Tell me." She gestured to the rings. "When'd she give those to you?"

"The gemstone ring was from my granddaughter actually," the Doctor said.

Clara's eyes widened. "The one you took to Akhaten?"

He grunted. "We got it there. I don't want to forget her."

Clara smiled. "Fair enough. And the wedding band?"

The Doctor averted her gaze. "It was a private moment with River, and that's all I'm telling you."

"Right, anything that involves the two of you with a distinct lack of clothes is nothing I want to hear about. Well, come on." Clara moved into the front hall and scooped up her handbag and perused her coats. She shrugged, decided she would take whatever she needed from the TARDIS wardrobe, and slung the handbag over her shoulder. "Let's go rescue your wife. Make sure I'm back in time to finish grading these essays."

* * *

He hadn't been trying to look for a way to rescue River Song from the Library. With all the centuries on Trenzalore and his subsequent regeneration, the debilitating pain had managed to compartmentalize itself away in the portion of his brain reserved for bow ties, tweed, and Ponds. The Doctor missed his wife in a way he had never missed Rose Tyler or even his first wife. But the mere mention of River no longer threatened to send him into tears or caused his hearts to ache and ache for days. He could talk about her now, rub the wedding band she'd given him during one of their numerous wedding ceremonies, smile fondly over their adventures, and finally move on with his life. It's what River would have wanted.

But suddenly the opportunity was there, and he couldn't pass it up. _Except …_

It was a curious thing, his inability to withstand touch in this regeneration. His tenth self had been very touchy-feely, his eleventh self even more so. He had probably hit some sort of limit capacity when it came to physical contact in his last regeneration, he decided, and the Doctor was OK with this. There wasn't the overwhelming drive to hold someone's hand or give him or her a hug. _Except …_

"All right." Clara's voice shook him from his thoughts, and the Doctor stared blankly at her across the console. She had one eyebrow raised, in full teacher mode. "So, considering our last foray into resurrecting the dead turned out spectacularly horrible, what's your grand idea?"

"It's not like with Danny," the Doctor replied, guilt tugging at his hearts because he really had done his best to bring Danny back to Clara. But in the end, it had been Danny's choice to remain in the collapsing Nethersphere. "He chose to remain there when given the chance to get out. River never got that. I made the choice for her on both ends."

"Yeah, don't remind me," Clara muttered and crossed her arms over her chest. "Like a book on a shelf, if I remember right."

The Doctor nearly flinched. Instead, he scowled. "If it's going to be that hard for you, I'll take you home."

She shook her head. "No. Well. It's just …" She bit her lip. "I don't understand why Danny stayed. He _had_ the chance to live, to lead a full life. Instead, he sent some boy through that he never even told me about. It took me weeks to discover this was a kid that he accidentally killed in Afghanistan."

"He gave the boy another chance at life."

"But why didn't he give himself that chance? He claimed he loved me, but if he really had, he'd come back."

The Doctor was full of opinions about Danny Pink, approximately 78.2% of them not very complimentary. He normally was very happy to inform Clara about all of them, but the abruptness from the first few months of his rocky regeneration had settled and the last thing he wanted was an even more angry Clara. "You won't take it out on her, will you?"

"What? Who? River?" Clara strode around the console so she could stare him in the eye. "Only if she refuses to come back to you. If she does, I'll never forgive her. I'll delete her from the database myself."

Because Clara would very likely do that, the Doctor nodded. "I doubt she would pass up the chance to leave. I didn't give her much choice to go there to begin with. But, there's a catch, and it's a big one." He shoved his hands in his pockets and watched the time rotor move lazily. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"The catch involves you."

* * *

Clara squinted at the monitor, watching as her doppelganger moved around a room stuffed full of books and various treasures from trips around the galaxy. Professor River Song's office at Luna University. The time, according to the stamp on the bottom right corner and from what the Doctor told her, was approximately two weeks before Lux returned from the Library to inform everyone of what happened to River and her team.

"OK. This is all sorts of strange. Is that really me?" She frowned at the monitor.

"It's an echo of you, one of the splinters from when you went into my timeline on Trenzalore," the Doctor said as he poked through one of the bookcases ringing the console room.

"But why is it here? I thought they all went away once we came out of your timeline."

"That's what I thought. You see, I was on my way to check out an exhibit of Waxam sapphires when I spotted her. I shouldn't have seen her. Shouldn't even know she was there. Your echoes were only relevant to my earlier incarnations. Not this one."

"Maybe she's involved in something you forgot about. You are pretty old."

"Shut up," the Doctor muttered and joined Clara at the console. "No, I've checked into her."

She shot him a disbelieving stare. "Are you stalking my echoes across time and space in your spare time?"

" _No_. Why do I need an echo now when the real you's here? Plus, all the echoes disappeared after Trenzalore. All but this one. What is this particular echo doing that you can't do yourself?" He motioned to the monitor. "Take a look at the paper she's holding."

Clara sighed and froze the monitor, using the hand controls on the TARDIS console to zoom into see what the Clara echo held. "The Missing 4,022: Theories of What Happened in The Library. She's doing a paper on the Library? Why?"

"Right now, a younger version of myself has River Song on their last date." His voice trembled slightly. They both ignored it. "River and her team leave tomorrow. But here's the thing: I don't remember anyone resembling you in the Library. Since Trenzalore, I've been able to place a good many of your echoes in earlier parts of my timeline. But not this one."

"Because her purpose isn't to save you. It's to save River?"

"Saving River saves me, apparently. In your eyes, that is. There's a way for her out of the Library, but it involves making a switch. She'll get out, but you're going in her place. Your echo that is."

Clara spun away from the monitor to jab a finger in the Doctor's face. "No! You're not condemning me … _her_ to the same sort of existence that River's in!"

"She's an echo. She'll fade the moment she's uploaded, mission in life fulfilled. She won't know what she's missing. Not like River does. She's part-Time Lord. She senses time and space much like I do, and being confined in a database is worse than death for a Time Lord. So, why did I do it? Why did I preserve her, knowing that?"

"Because somehow, you knew that a future you would get her out?"

"Exactly!"

"Then why did you bring me here?" Clara punched his arm.

"Ow!" The Doctor jerked away, rubbing the injured limb. "That was uncalled for."

"No, what was uncalled for was dragging me along to see a version of me be seduced by you to _die_ to save your wife. You couldn't even save Danny, but you're using me to get what you want." Tears burned, and she refused to let them fall. Not in front of him. "It's perfectly OK for you to have your wife, but not for me to have Danny."

"Danny made his own choice to stay. Don't blame me because he wasn't enough of a man to stay alive for you."

Clara's slap echoed through the console room. She stormed away, dashing her hand furiously at her eyes as the battle against tears became too much. With a sob, she pushed into the first door she saw and vaguely noticed the plush sofas and overstuffed pillows piled atop them. She sank onto one, pulling a pillow into her lap and burying her face in it as she cried for everything she had lost.

* * *

It was almost painfully easy. The Clara echoes he'd met in the past were naturally feisty women, much like the one he left on the TARDIS. All answered to a higher calling that appeared to be saving him. It'd taken little work for the Doctor to befriend one Ellie Oswin, telling her that he was River Song's spouse. Ellie, it turned out, was River's graduate assistant who had missed the trip to the Library to work on her thesis and was willing to do anything to get her mentor back among the living – even take her place in the Library.

The solution was painfully simple, and one that Ellie had devised herself over the months that he had cultivated the relationship from her point of view. On his end, it'd taken a matter of hours and several strategic hops forward in the TARDIS and ignoring the Clara-sounding voice in his head that maybe he shouldn't be doing this.

The Doctor lingered in the doorway, one hand wrapped around the frame as he flicked a gaze back to the hall where the real Clara had disappeared. His thumb ran over the wedding ring on his fourth finger, and he could hear Amelia Pond's voice in his head. _It's called marriage, you numpty._ He'd always been a rubbish husband. Did he really think he could be any better if given a second chance? He closed his eyes and started to close the door, to walk away and forget all this. Let Ellie Oswin live a normal, boring, human life.

"Doctor?"

He let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding when he heard Ellie's voice. _Well, then._ He stepped out to greet her.

"I've been reading up on the systems there, and I talked extensively with Mr. Lux," she said as the Doctor escorted her back to the TARDIS. "It's a basic data transfer that you could accomplish with ease. Upload me and download her, body intact. Easy peasey."

The Doctor set the controls and eyed the young woman. Too easy peasey, he thought, and he wondered where the real Clara was hiding. Guilt ate at him, and he hated that. Hated that Clara had a very _good_ point and that he was using this echo of hers just to get something so selfish, something he had no right whatsoever to obtain. His days with River were finished, filed away. He had to let her go. He _had_ to.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked Ellie. "There's no reversal to the process unless someone else wants to eventually take your place." Except there won't be anyone else, he silently added. Ellie would fade as soon as she entered the Library's database, her existence as an echo fulfilled.

"Maybe. Perhaps. I feel like it's my calling." Ellie was too busy taking in the TARDIS to be listening closely. "All my life, this is what I've meant to do. And now I can really walk among the stories, all the ones saved to the Library. Not a bad way to do a thesis, eh? Besides, Professor Song wouldn't leave me there. Pop back in a year or two and swap in a new grad student. I'll use the interface to maintain contact with Luna."

 _No, you won't, no, you won't, no, you won't._ With a dawning horror, the Doctor watched as Ellie detailed her plans. She thought she was going to come back. "You don't realize what River was actually doing there, do you?"

"Of course I do!" Ellie beamed at him. "Mr. Lux informed the University that she had managed to teleport into the library's archives and was conducting a throughout research of the contents. One-of-a-kind access, and think of all the knowledge! The Board was quite pleased, and they're used to Professor Song's prolonged absences during excavations. Didn't he tell you that?"

No. No, of course not. He hadn't bothered to check as his tenth self, and his eleventh self had been too much of an emotional wreck to even begin to handle the aftermath of River's trip to the Library. "What else did he say?" he asked as the TARDIS landed.

"Are we here?" Ellie rushed to the doors and peeked outside.

"Ellie, this is important! What did Lux say?" the Doctor demanded as Ellie threw the door open to reveal the main database of the Library, bathed in sunlight. She rushed out of the TARDIS and he followed. He skidded to a halt, hearts lodged in his throat as he gazed at the place where he had left his wife so many centuries earlier.

Ellie strode to the terminal and sat, booting into the system. "Won't take but a second!"

"Ellie!" The Doctor remembered how to move and rushed out after her. "Ellie, don't do it! Tell me, what did Lux tell you?"

"Well, he didn't tell me exactly," Ellie said as her fingers flew over the keyboard. "He sent a message to the university through his new assistant." She tapped her chin. "Ah … Missy! That's the name. Missy. She said that Professor Song had found the promised land."

His eyes went wide with shock. With utter panic. "Ellie, don't do this! It's a trap!"

Ellie ignored him, merely flashed a smile over her shoulder. "Oh, you clever boy. Remember me, won't you?" She hit a key and disappeared in a flash of light.

 _Ellie Oswin has been saved …_

The announcement echoed through the room as Clara stepped out of the TARDIS. She folded her arms over her chest as the Doctor stared at the spot where Ellie had been. She flitted her gaze about. "Is it done then?"

He wasn't quite sure if he could speak without breaking to pieces.

Clara pushed off the door. "So, is she coming or not?"

"Shut up," he bit out.

"I really will delete her-"

" _You will not do a thing to my wife, Clara Oswald,"_ he roared, the unleashed anger cutting her off and causing her to take a step back in reflex. He closed his eyes and took several measured breaths before he was reasonably sure he could speak in a normal voice. "It was a trap. It was Missy. Missy engineered this."

Clara sucked in a breath and, blessed all the fates, didn't say anything more. "I'm sorry," she finally managed. "Is there anything I can do?"

He gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. Feeling every inch of his age, he turned away from the mainframe and started toward the TARDIS. He would take Clara home. Then he wasn't quite sure what he was going to do. First Gallifrey, now River. If Missy wasn't already gone, he'd-

 _Initiating download._

"What?" Clara asked as the Doctor halted. She looked over his shoulder, her jaw dropping. "Oh my God. Doctor!"

He pivoted in time to see a flash of light. He threw an arm over his eyes to shield them from the intense glow, Clara turning her head away next to him. The glow radiated for several seconds, then began to retract. He dropped his arm as the light reformed into small particles, whirling around and around as they started to take a form. A humanoid one. Legs, arms, a face … his breath caught. And hair. A halo of curls going every whichway. The light solidified. Green eyes, blonde curls, _oh god_. He felt the telepathic hum in the back of his mind as it connected with the person in front of him.

"Oh!" Clara shook out of her stun, sprinting forward as the light faded to reveal River Song as he'd last seen her on Trenzalore, billowing white dress and all. She caught River as she stumbled forward on wobbling legs. "There now, take it easy. You're all right now. You're safe."

River steadied herself as Clara wrapped an arm around her waist. She licked her lips and swallowed, casting her gaze about before focusing on Clara. "Clara."

"Yeah," she nodded, smiling brightly. "Yeah, you remember me?"

"Hard to forget the impossible girl." River gave Clara a wan smile, patting the younger woman on the back as she found her balance. She straightened, posture growing straighter as her gaze met the Doctor's. If she was surprised at the version of him that was standing there, she was hiding it. Instead, her smile grew wide and warm, her eyes sparkling. "Hello, sweetie."

Beaming, Clara looked up to take in the Doctor's reaction. She wasn't quite sure what to expect, but she certainly didn't plan to see the stunned look in his eyes. His face had gone a sickly white, and his fists were balled into his side. He swallowed once, spun on his heel and walked away. His steps grew faster and faster until he was nearly running from them, disappearing around a corner.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2_

He couldn't move. Couldn't think. _Couldn't breathe_. She was there, inches away from him, awakening parts of his brain that he thought had atrophied. Clara was doing something, but he really wasn't bothered with paying attention to what she was doing at the moment. He heard her babbling something to River and a part of his mind sincerely hoped she wasn't embarrassing him by choosing to banter of all things.

Then River's eyes met his. Those green eyes he'd seen filled with love, desire, curiosity, anger, and secrets. He knew her face better than he knew his own. Knew every laugh line, small wrinkle, where exactly she had taken the age down. He swallowed, forcing breath past the suddenly large obstruction in his throat. He backed up a step, body on autopilot as he pivoted and walked, walked, _ran_. The air roared in his ears, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard Clara shouting after him.

He didn't make it that far. He stumbled, instincts keeping him in a patch of sunlight as he collapsed against the wall. He squeezed his eyes shut as he slid to the floor and buried his face in his hands. She was alive. _She was alive._ Memories of his marriage broke through the barriers he'd carefully erected in his mind, and all of a sudden he was feeling too much. He rocked back and forth, back and forth, and wasn't sure if he wanted to thank Missy or throttle the life out of her – if there was any life left in her. If her goal had been to reduce the Doctor to an incoherent mess, it was well and truly accomplished.

 _His wife was alive_. It had been a wish on the same level as the restoration of Gallifrey, and despite working with Ellie, part of him had been braced to fail. Well, to be fair, 93.45 percent of him was pretty sure they would fail, but he had to at least try. But it had worked. The Impossible Girl had performed her magic, and River was alive, and he was still a rubbish husband, and what the hell was he going to do now?

He dragged his hands down his face, swiping his arm over his eyes as he heard the footsteps approach. It was River. He could hear the swish of her clothes, and she was completely silent. Clara would be talking. Clara was always saying something. But River knew exactly what he needed. She always knew. Silence or laughter or sexual innuendo, she wielded her knowledge of his emotions like a samurai's katana.

She knelt by his side, and he found himself looking into her eyes once more. He expected censure from her, anger at the very least. He'd left her time and time again, and she'd been so hurt and confused on Trenzalore. Blaming herself because he'd been unable to cope with her loss. And, to be perfectly honest, he wasn't handling her resurrection very well either.

Everything he wanted to say to her rolled through his mind. Their first time meeting in centuries, and he wanted – no, needed – for his first words to her to be something meaningful. Something significant. _Hi honey, I'm home. Sorry I'm late, I had to make one hell of a detour to get here. There's no words in the universe adequate enough to tell you how I still feel about you, but I'll find them somehow._

"I'm very Scottish," he blurted.

She smiled. "Yes, you are."

"I'm not pretty boy or your fella with the bow ties," he continued. "I'm old, I'm grumpy, and you've seen this face before, haven't you?"

"A time or two," River admitted with a pretty shrug of the shoulder, and he scowled at her.

"So when you said spoilers on Trenzalore …"

"It still applies. Hush, now." She reached for his hand, and he yanked it back in reflex, scooting away from her a bit. He cursed himself and let it drop to the ground.

"It's all right." She laid a single finger on the back of his hand and absently traced the vein there. He flinched, willing his hearts to calm as that gentle stroking sent chills down his spine. This time, he turned his hand until her finger traced over his palm. He recognized the Gallifreyan words she was scribing into his skin and once again shame rolled through him. He should be comforting her, not the other way around.

"Well then," he said. "Now that we've both been resurrected from the dead, what will we do now?"

"For starters, get out of the shadows." River quickly gained her feet as the Doctor noticed the shadows creeping dangerously close to his leg. He scrambled up and backed away, and unconsciously reaching for his wife's hand. It was an act as natural as breathing, something even his tenth self had recognized when she'd grabbed his hand for the very first time. He didn't clasp hands anymore, _he didn't do that_.

But when his hand closed over River's, it felt like the most natural thing in the universe.

* * *

The first time River had seen the TARDIS after she was uploaded to the Library, she'd nearly wept. All the warmth had gone, as if the Doctor had purged every single bit of light from his life now that she and her parents were gone. Warm yellow were replaced by cool greys, the ramshackle console of bits and bobs now had sleek controls.

This latest incarnation of her husband had kept the overall desktop theme but there were signs of life again. Bookcases ringed the gallery above the main part of the console room, interspersed with several comfortable chairs. A chalkboard covered in equations sat to one side, and River found herself starting to do the calculations in her head.

The Doctor and Clara were on the other side of the room, whispering to each other. The Doctor was making his point via gesticulating, while Clara looked quietly furious. River was willing to wager that the quiet part wouldn't last very long. Although she had seen this incarnation of the Doctor several times before, this was only her second time around Clara Oswald. The young woman had aged greatly in the time between Trenzalore and now, but you didn't notice it unless you looked into her eyes.

"Right, well, taking you home," the Doctor said in a louder voice and with long-legged strides, crossed to the console.

"Oh, no, you're not," Clara informed him. His legs were longer, but she was faster. She slapped her hand over his just as he started to take them into the vortex. "You can't just drop a bombshell on me like that then drop me off at my flat. I know you. You're going to investigate and see this through, and I'm going with you."

"Even though I betrayed you? Even though I took advantage of our friendship and enabled you to watch as your doppleganger died?" It wasn't a statement. It was a matter of fact, punctuated by the calm look he gave Clara.

"As someone once told me, do you seriously think I care so little for you that betraying me would make a difference?"

The Doctor merely winged an eyebrow at Clara. "Visited the moon lately?"

She huffed. "OK, OK, point. God, it's infuriating when you're right."

"I live to be infuriating."

"Regardless," Clara bit out. "I'm entitled to know what happens."

"Humans. You think you're entitled to everything."

"You seriously want me to believe that Time Lords aren't entitled?"

River didn't bother hiding her amused snort.

"Ha!" Clara jabbed her finger at River. "Your wife agrees with me."

"My wife will agree with anyone who's yanking my chain."

"Your wife," River said mildly, "has a name."

"Oh?" With a half smile, he turned to her, waggling his eyebrows. "And just by what name do you preferred to be called?"

Something deep inside her unknotted at the familiar look he was giving her, half-teasing, a touch besotted, and attempting to come off as deadly serious. It was the expression he gave her younger self when she ran into this incarnation of the Doctor, and even with that foreknowledge, she was relieved.

"It depends on the context," she said and winked at him. He smirked back at her.

Clara blinked, then her jaw dropped. "Oh my God. You two are flirting. Properly flirting."

"I'm not flirting." In two steps, the Doctor was by River's side, gazing down into her eyes. Sparkles of desire flared to life, and she very nearly pulled him to her for a proper snog. "I do not flirt."

Clara gave an exaggerated snort. "Oh that is flirting, and I'm getting out of here before you two shag against the console or do something else that'll give me nightmares for the next year." She whirled around and ran up the stairs. "Just please, sanitize the console room after!" she yelled as she made her way deeper into the TARDIS.

"That wasn't flirting," the Doctor yelled after her.

River made a noncommittal sound and turned back to the chalkboard, and the Doctor grumbled. "I wasn't! … was I? I flirt now?" He jabbed a finger at it. "I flirt with you. Only you, understand me? No more of this flirty picking up women all over time and space thing."

"Yes, my love," she said casually, very amused by the exchange. She sensed him tense. "Doctor?"

"It's been a very long time since I've heard that," he murmured, and she turned away from the chalkboard.

"It's been a very long time since I've had anyone to say that to."

They didn't say anything for a moment, and in the silence, River _thought_ for the first time. Like when she had disappeared into the Library's archives to begin with, everything had happened so fast. A day's adventures had culminated in a single moment, when she found herself face-to-face with an echo of Clara Oswald and a choice. Stay or go, and in the end, it was no choice at all.

She never let herself dare imagine returning from the Library. The Doctor had made a conscious decision to put her there, and she knew it was because he was unable to say good-bye to her. Their farewell on Trenzalore had allowed her to come to peace with that, and it allowed her to stop waiting. Her mother's daughter all over again. She knew that a future him would see a younger her, so she made sure he knew that was to come and faded away, returning to the Library to start all over.

But now blood hummed beneath her skin, and her lungs were filled with real oxygen, and she was standing next to her husband, who wasn't quite sure what to do with her. To be fair, she wasn't quite sure what to do with herself either.

"I have a question." His voice startled her from her thoughts, and she glanced over to see him regarding her as a puzzle. It was an expression she'd grown used to with his younger self. She already knew what he was going to ask. "How did you come back?"

She shrugged. "It's a bit complicated."

"Complicated! Well, easy wouldn't fit now, would it." The Doctor then smacked his forehead. "Oh, what am I saying, you just came back to _life_. We should give you a once-over in the med lab. Do you need sleep? Yes, sleep! Sleep for a week, then we'll chat."

"No, really, I'm fine," River insisted.

He scowled at her. "Tea? Do you at least want tea?"

She smiled, amused once more. "Yes, I'd love a cuppa."

"Great! Tea!" He clapped his hands together, rubbing his finggers. "I'm rubbish at making tea."

"How about I make the tea?" River led the way into the kitchen, relieved that it hadn't changed. She located tea bags for herself and coffee beans for the Doctor. She loaded the grinder, turned it on, and smiled. She could feel him frowning at her, and he was so grumpy that it made her want to run her hands through his shaggy grey hair and press a kiss to the top of his head. She loved the bow-tied, tweed-wearing madman she married, but she also utterly adored this version of him. She knew what he would be like in the future and held fast to it as she boiled water, grinded coffee, set up a French press for him, and steeped tea for herself.

"How often was I around you?" the Doctor demanded.

"Enough," River replied, setting the French press on the table. "Enough to know you are very fussy about your coffee and once took over a Scottish café to teach them all how to properly make it and as a result was three weeks late picking up Clara."

"You should had seen what they were doing to that coffee," he retorted as she pulled milk out of the refrigerator for herself. "Coffee masters. _Ha!_ I taught them a thing of two."

"Did you now?" River took the seat opposite his as the Doctor flicked a glance at the watch on his wrist, then depressed the plunger on the French press. "And was Clara very cross when you finally remembered to pick her up?"

"She needs less coffee. It does odd things to her skin." He poured out a mug, sampled it and saluted her with the mug. "Good coffee."

River smiled and took a sip from her own mug. "I had an excellent teacher."

"Really now?" The Doctor's chest puffed up a bit with pride. "Well, I am an excellent instructor, as I was told quite frequently."

"Mmm … Strax was quite throughout in his teaching lessons."

The Doctor choked. " _Strax?_ "

River hid her smile with another sip of tea, enjoying the Doctor grumble under his breath with jealously. Of course, Strax hadn't _really_ taught her how to brew coffee like a master, but she had a feeling this was the nudge the Doctor needed to go pay a visit to her younger self on her first night in university. The Doctor's jealous tells were ever so apparent, no matter the regeneration.

He scowled at her. "You're having me on."

"A lady never tells." She winked at him, and he glowered further.

They sat in companionable silence, enjoying their drinks. River found her thoughts turning to the Doctor's sudden aversion to casual displays of affection. Not even his first body had such a reluctance to interact on a personal level. The Doctor had looked so baffled when he grabbed her hand, as if he hadn't done it very much. The flirting had caught him completely off-guard. The reactions were completely different from the tenth and eleventh incarnations. Any reticence on their ends had come from their mistrust of her. The current Doctor's issues appeared to be more with himself than with her, and it was a bit of a relief. She was tired of having to fight for the Doctor's trust. But despite the deep shock, he was acting like the Doctor she'd known after their marriage from his point of view – complete and absolute faith in her.

Though, she admitted, she dearly wanted to snog him.

The Doctor shoved away his mug and pushed to his feet. "OK, I need a sample."

"Of what?" River took her mug with her as she followed the Doctor out of the kitchen.

"DNA."

"You can't possibly think I'm not real."

"No, if you weren't, the TARDIS would have flagged it. Added some additional monitoring after your mother was taken." He frowned at her, then whipped a DNA tester from his pocket and jabbed it into the back of her hand.

"Ow!" She yanked the hand away, but he grabbed it back, wiping off the drop of blood with his thumb and tasting it.

"I'm pretty sure you're not an echo this time," he declared and thumbed the reader. "45 percent human, 55 percent Gallifreyan via altered DNA. Matches your previous medical records. Healthy and …" His voice died away as he squinted at the reader. "That's not possible."

"What's not?" River asked, but the Doctor all but pushed her into the med bay.

"Sit," he ordered.

"Do not treat me like a mere companion," River shot at him. She snatched the reader from him before he could react and studied it herself. She nearly dropped it in surprise. The data readout should be impossible. But hadn't this entire day been filled with impossibilities already? "This says-"

"Sit," he repeated as he pulled out equipment.

This time, she sat.

Together, they ran a battery of tests on her, comparing her last medical records from just before the Library to newly generated ones. They discussed data and theory, went over complicated calculations in Gallifreyan together. Test after test came back with the same data, until they had covered an entire counter with results.

She wasn't a ganger or an echo. She was healthy, in her prime for a Gallifreyan. She was capable of reproducing and had no diseases, no organ defects.

And she had enough regeneration energy to regenerate three more times.

"There's the difference," the Doctor said, standing next to her as he tapped an older record. "All of your post-Berlin records say you have no regeneration energy left. This shouldn't be possible."

"You didn't have any either, sweetie," River pointed out. "Yet, you're standing in front of me."

He gave her a thoughtful look. "I imagine I tell you that in the future."

"Only because I tried to kill you." She winked at him, and he muttered something beneath his breath. "Language," she purred in his ear, then decided to test the waters. She flicked her tongue over his earlobe and he shivered. But he didn't flinch away. Progress, she mentally declared, and turned back to the records. "But you didn't explain why."

"The Time Lords sent them through a crack like the one in your mother's wall," he explained. "There was another crack on Trenzalore. It was a cry for help, and I guess they thought I was their best way of getting home. I think Clara had something to do with it, but I never asked. Full regeneration cycle. Yours is partial. So, the question is, who gave you three regenerations?"

"I figured that's obvious, sweetie," River said. "A future you?"

"High on the possibilities." The Doctor moved to a chalkboard and began scratching out information in Gallifryan. "There's me. There's the crack that was on Trenzalore. There's …" He scowled.

"There's?" she prompted.

"It's not important," he evaded, and this time she frowned at him. He had gone tense, and his jaw was set. His blue eyes bore into the chalkboard, as if he could ignite it on sight alone. He tossed the chalk back into the tray and stalked out of the med bay. River closed her eyes and debated going after him, then decided to wait it out. She didn't relish getting into a fight with him.

She looked back at the chalkboard and saw that the Doctor had started to write out a word in Gallifreyan. She traced her finger over the chalked line. "Mi …?"

* * *

The Doctor scowled at his chalkboard. He'd taken the liberty of setting them up in a number of places. This one was in the recess of the wardrobe, off the fifth corridor in the anteroom. He was relatively almost positively sure that neither River nor Clara would find him. Which was good, because he had to think. Thinking required diagrams, postulating, utter guesswork, and complete silence at times. Audiences were definitely useful, but he wasn't ready to have one for this particular problem yet.

 _Missy_.

The Doctor began scribbling out his data.

Fact: The Nethersphere was crafted from a matrix data slice where people's minds were uploaded after they died. Time Lord technology was utilized to take these minds and rematerialize them as living bodies.

Fact: The Library contained the largest hard drive ever created where people could be converted to a virtual form to be saved to the hard drive. Being re-downloaded needed to be triggered by an increase in memory capacity, which resulted in the loss of a physical body.

Fact: Missy had convinced Ellie Oswin and Luna University that River was actually on an expedition and not trapped in a hard drive. Missy used this knowledge to manipulate Ellie into pursuing a trip to the Library herself and swapping herself out for River.

As he wrote that last sentence, the guilt eating away at the Doctor lessened just a smidge. He may have provided the access for Ellie, but the seeds of the idea came from Missy. Ellie was far too prepared to make this trip and believed that she was going to come back. He had attributed it to her knowing on some molecular level that she was an echo of Clara, but what if it was more than that? He started scribbling again.

Fact: River Song was restored to a physical body despite having lost hers. Something Ellie did in the transfer facilitated this.

How indeed. Why hadn't he questioned it before? He nearly slapped a palm against his forehead. _Stupid, stupid Doctor_.

Fact: River Song has enough regeneration energy for at least three more regenerations.

The Doctor dropped the chalk and stepped away from the board, studying the swirls of Gallifreyan writing. There were the facts, and he could see the parallels plain as day. The Nethersphere and the Library hard drive were vastly similar. Missy clearly knew of it, knew who River Song was and most likely who she was to him. So what was her plan?

Ah, that was a question, and he had lots of them now. The Doctor moved to the opposite side of the chalkboard, pondered over which to write down first. There were many angles to pursue. What exactly was Ellie told? Where was Lux? What was Missy's plan? How was River involved in this? Did she know the entire time they were in the kitchen that he wanted to snog her until they couldn't breathe?"

He had imagined plenty of times rescuing River from the Library. There were stretches of days and weeks when his previous self had done nothing but daydream about it. He would restore her to her physical form, and then she would slap the hell out of him for taking so long as he apologized. Then one thing would lead to another, and they would have spectacular reunion sex on the closest surface available, manage to make into the TARDIS, then start all over again.

His carnal appetite, very present in his previous two incarnations, was almost gone now. His tenth self, while in love with Rose, did not object to casual liaisons – especially during his self-destructive phase after Donna left. His eleventh self loved to flirt, but his sexual energies were focused on River.

He didn't have the desire to flirt with anyone in this body (curly-haired, green-eyed archaeologists excepted), and as Clara had pointed out with the wedding band, he still considered himself very married and devoted to one particular person. That person was somewhere on the TARDIS, making herself at home once more.

And with her return came the renewal of appetites he once thought were lost. He hadn't been kidding when he approached Clara about how to deal with River's possible return. But all the guesswork and research in the universe hadn't prepared him for getting a bloody erection while watching River fiddle with the French press and tease him over his new love of coffee.

With a frustrated huff, he abandoned the chalkboard and went in search of his wife.


	3. Chapter 3

Everything in the bedroom she shared with the Doctor looked the way River had left it so long ago, but it was different as well. The differences were subtle but quite prominent once you really paid attention. The tweed jackets in the closet were gone, replaced with dark coats and cardigans. Trousers were the proper length, and the Doc Martens were pretty snazzy. There were no bow ties, and she tried not to think about that too much as she hunted through her clothes for something to wear that wasn't a pristine white.

White had never, ever been her color, but she couldn't shake it while she'd been in CAL's database. It hadn't taken River long to figure out that Charlotte and Donna Noble's created children had seen her as an angel and ensured she dressed as such. The irony made her laugh. River Song was no one's angel. Like her husband, she favored darker clothes unless she had the chance to act very disgracefully. She found jodphurs and an oversized off-the-shoulder sapphire jumper and her favorite belt. Satisfied, she headed for the shower and to find some place to incinerate her white pantsuit.

Regeneration, River mused, was a way of life with the Doctor and there was no reason to get maudlin over it. Her sweetie was her sweetie, where he was in tweed or not. Seeing past versions of him never fazed her before. She wondered if he had yet to remember her adventures with his eighth self right around the Time War. She hoped he would one day, but that version of him was ever so prone to convenient amnesia. Granted, she hadn't helped matters then either. Chuckling, she wandered out of the bedroom and into a room across the hall.

Now she nearly wept.

Her library was in pristine condition, right down to the typewriter where she had written the pages of Melody Malone. It'd been one of the last things she'd done here before her fateful expedition to the Library. CAL had done its best to recreate it, but nothing was like this room. Shelf upon shelf of books lined multiple levels, not quite as big as the TARDIS library but it could hold its own. Her large, antique desk stood in front of display cases showing off her most valued treasures from her expedition. These items had never seen the likes of Stormcage. A whiteboard with calculations in progress stretched down the wall next to the door. The fireplace was against the opposite wall, between the two circular staircases that would take her up to her treasured books. An overstuffed couch and armchairs sat before it. It was her sanctuary, and she missed it so much.

"Wow."

River smiled as Clara hovered in the doorway, gawking slightly as she took in the room. "Impressive, isn't it?"

"It's like the TARDIS library," Clara whispered, easing into the room.

"This one's more focused on history and archeology," River said, beckoning Clara further inside. She motioned to equipment lining the wall opposite her desk and the display cases. "It has a full lab where I can work on object research and seven levels of books."

"Are some in the jars? Like the strange ones I found once?"

River nodded to her. "Ancient ones from Gallifrey. Don't tell the Doctor." She winked at Clara. "I may have gotten them slightly illegally."

Clara laughed. "You're a lot different from the last time. A lot more approachable, I suppose."

"I could say the same about you, Clara Oswald."

Clara winged an eyebrow, then huffed a bit. "Yeah, had that one coming, didn't I?"

"We both had it coming, darling. It was ever so easy to bait you. You were quite young then."

"I'm not that much older," Clara challenged. "I've been traveling with the Doctor what … three years? Ish? I think. I kind of lost track of time."

"Oh, but you are." River placed a finger beneath Clara's chin and tilted it up. "It's in the eyes, Clara. The things you've seen and the trials you've experienced always show in the eyes. They've not been easy, but you wouldn't change it for the world, would you?"

"No … and yes." Clara's gaze cut away.

River didn't say anything for a long moment. "What was his name?"

Clara's eyes snapped back to River's and she huffed again. She pulled away, hugging herself as she stared into the fireplace. "He was right about you," she finally said. "The Doctor. 'River would know. River always knew.' And you were right. How did you know? You were dead. You weren't still hanging around in my head, were you?"

She started to pace, not bothering to wait on a reply. "Danny. Danny Pink. He was my boyfriend. He was …" Her hand rested on her stomach a moment before snatching it away. "He was hit by a car, then turned into a Cyberman about six months ago. Suppose that's the short version of it. I tried to get the Doctor to save him, but Danny wouldn't let us."

"I see. When did you miscarry Danny's child?"

Clara nearly tripped and whirled around. She jabbed a finger at River. "You have no right to ask me that question."

"So the Doctor doesn't know." River moved to the small table next to her lab equipment where she kept tea and a kettle.

"No one knew," Clara whispered as River started the kettle. "How did you figure it out?"

River mimicked Clara's earlier motion. "Educated guess. It's in the tells. Patting your stomach when talking about your deceased boyfriend is one of them. It's not something the Doctor would notice unless he's looking for it. You're obviously not pregnant now, else you wouldn't be on the TARDIS."

Clara sank onto the couch and buried her head in her hands. "Oh my God, he's going to find out, isn't he?"

"If he does, it won't be from me." River prepared two mugs and carried them to the couch, then handed one to her. "It's not my secret to tell, Clara."

"I don't particularly want to tell you either," Clara muttered.

River made a non-committal sound and sipped at her tea while Clara stared stonily into her own mug for several minutes. She shifted her focus to the office, started mentally cataloging what needed to be done. She needed to take inventory, figure out what projects she could resume work on and which ones she'd need to pass off. She needed to inquire about her status at Luna. She should-

"I was going to tell him the day he died," Clara blurted, cutting into River's thoughts. "I was three months along. Didn't realize it for the longest time. I was pregnant, and I was going to tell Danny everything, then tell the Doctor I couldn't travel with him anymore. But then Danny died while he was on the phone with me. The bloody phone. And the next day, I started bleeding. I knew what was happening, and it wouldn't stop, and I miscarried. I didn't tell anyone, not even my Gran though I think she knew too come to think of it. Then I kinda just lost it and tried to force the Doctor to bring Danny back to life. And he let me. I betrayed him and he let me try to bring Danny back anyhow, but then Danny refused to come and I had already lost our baby and oh my God." She buried her head in her hands and began to sob.

River hastily grabbed Clara's mug before it could drop from her hands and put it on the coffee table along with her own. She pulled Clara into her arms and rocked her back and forth, absently running her fingers through her hair as Clara cried. "You need to tell him, darling," she murmured.

"How can I without making him feel guilty?" Clara sobbed.

"In this case, he had nothing to do with it." River eased Clara back, then fished in her pocket for a handkerchief. She passed it over. "Danny was killed in an accident, yes? Was the Doctor anywhere near?"

"No."

"You had an immense shock and were still in your first trimester. It happens. He'll be sad for you, but he knows it's not his fault."

Clara nodded and pushed to her feet. "Sorry, didn't mean to come dump that on you. I was just … wanting to apologize. For before, during Trenzalore. I didn't realize how much he loved you. He couldn't talk about you."

"He doesn't tend to talk about his former companions much."

"No, no," Clara clarified. "He literally couldn't. He started sobbing when I brought you up. He can talk about you now, some. Told me once you trapped him for a month with otters. Good on you. I want to hear about it some time. Anyhow, he never stopped loving you, and he once said that he wouldn't have made it to Trenzalore alive without you. I just figured you needed to know that. And now with Danny, I get what he was feeling when he lost you. So, thank you."

Clara hugged River once more. "Thank you for loving him enough to come back," she murmured into River's shoulder and quickly left the room.

* * *

 _Finally._ The Doctor peered down the corridor as Clara walked out of River's study, wiped at her eyes, then headed in the opposite direction. He wondered what had taken her so long, but he couldn't blame her. He wanted to bask in River's presence as well. He fidgeted a bit, straightening his jacket and absently brushing a hand through his hair. Right. He was going to deal with the whole antsy physical bit and get back to the important questions.

He strode into River's study to find her sitting on the sofa, tea mug in hand and staring into the empty fireplace. From what he could see of her profile, she looked pensive. He gave her the silence she seemed to crave and took in her office, books stretching above them. He hadn't been in there since the day he left her to go to the Library.

He glanced at the display case and wondered if she noticed a few of the smaller items were missing, along with the ancient Japanese vase that was on a pedestal on the third level. He'd broken them in a rage, unable to deal with seeing her off to her death. The shards of broken pottery and glass were gone, and he silently thanked the TARDIS for taking care of him again.

"Well, Professor Song," he said, crossing the room. "How're you settling in?"

"It's home," she replied, and he saw the tension in her eyes as he stepped in front of her. It was there, just fleeting, then it was gone. He bristled. She was home, but she wasn't relaxed. He knew when she let her guard down, but something had that careful mask of hers sliding into place. He didn't want that. Not anymore.

He clasped his hands behind him and stared down at her. "What's with the look?"

She gave him a small smile. "Just thinking, sweetie."

"About?"

She sighed. "Something that you're not privy to, and don't you think pouting will get me to talk about it. It's not my story to tell."

"I'm not pouting. These lips do not pout."

"Oh, well that's a very pretty imitation of a pout." River laughed as he scowled at her. "And don't think I didn't notice that my favorite Jōmon era vase is missing. Oh, my love."

"It was an accident," the Doctor muttered and stared at the fireplace, trying to think of what to do now. He sought her out, because he couldn't get the distracting carnal thoughts out of his mind. But now guilt rolled over him in familiar waves. He heard the soft clink as River put her mug down.

He looked over his shoulder as she crossed to her desk and started to sort through stacks of paper, not quite sure how to talk to her. He couldn't remember the last time he was unable to talk to River, hated that all the words were jumbled in his mind. The tension was thick between them, and there was a lot that needed to be said. Her fatal trip to the Library, his being a rubbish husband and leaving her behind for a thousand years. His time on Trenzalore. He wondered if she knew about it and decided that she probably did to a degree. He thought about the questions on his chalkboard and about his wife stretched naked over her desk and nearly buried his face in his hands.

"Sweetie, pick a question and start with it," River said pleasantly as she scanned through her papers.

He grumbled beneath his breath. "Do you have to know everything?"

"Part of the job description."

He dropped to the couch and tried sorting through all the questions in his mind. He closed his eyes and his fingers twitched a bit, aching for a piece of chalk and one of his chalkboards. River had whiteboards, but the squeak of a dry-erase marker was nothing compared to the feel of chalk dust on your fingers and the satisfying clicks of chalk on a wood board. There were the obvious questions, the not-so-obvious questions, the sincerely annoying questions. There were facts and suppositions, and River's intoxicating scent woven throughout all of it. He took several deep breaths and tried to meditate. It would all become clear if he meditated, then he could ask River what he needed to know and ...

 _I slept._

It was the Doctor's first conscious thought after his mind emptied, and he absently wondered the last time he slept. Really slept, not a Kantrofarri-induced sleep. He shifted a bit, felt something ruffling his hair, and he stilled. He felt the ruffling again, nearly moaned as he felt fingers absently scratch his scalp and wondered why he wasn't flinching. He cracked open one eye and nearly leaped up in shock when he realized where he was.

He'd moved, but not off the couch. At some point, River had sat down with her papers and his head … his head was in her lap. She absently ran one hand through his hair, massaging his scalp as she read. He bit his lip as she took the hand away to turn the page, then worked her fingers back into his hair. He closed his eyes again. He was definitely dreaming. Definitely Kantrofarri, it had to be. It was the last time he'd dreamed about River, it was how he knew that Clara would dream about Danny. OK, right, so he had to properly wake up and go rescue Clara. Again. And …

He felt the hand in his hair pull ever so slightly, and he grunted. The River in his dreams didn't result to hair pulling.

"That's because you're not dreaming."

He cracked open one eye once more to see River giving him an amused smile. "I'm 79.43 percent positive I am."

"Because?"

"Because you're dead." Because touch didn't hurt him in a dream, he folded his hands over his stomach and remained where he was. "You're dead, and clearly I didn't dispose of the Kantrofarri properly. It makes logical sense since you're what I dreamed of last time. Let me be selfish, dear, and sleep a little longer."

River made a sound beneath her breath and moments later, he felt a sharp pinch in his side.

" _Ow!_ " He jerked upright, glaring at her as he rubbed his side. "That hurt! Forget this, you're a mean dream."

"Oh, sweetie. You're not dreaming."

And it came back to him. Ellie. The Library. Clara and rescuing River. Missy. He stared at River as if she was some sort of specimen, not quite sure how to deal with it. He absently ran his hand through his hair, then yanked it away in surprise. He stared at his palm, at the lines criss-crossing it.

 _River's touch hadn't made him flinch._

"I don't do touch," he said in a rush that sounded perilously close to a babble. But he didn't do babbling. That went with bow ties and too-short trousers. "I don't do hugs or hand-holding, and don't even begin to ask me about sex. I tried asking Clara about it, but she nearly punched me. I mean, not ask her for sex, just about it. Why didn't I hate your touch?"

River didn't say anything, but merely gave him that assessing look of hers that told him that she already knew the answer and was just waiting for him to get around to figuring it out himself. It was the look she alternated with the "he's hot when he's clever" one that was a particular favorite. He willed himself to breathe calmly, then carefully rested his hand atop hers. He was prepared for the instinctive reflex to pull away, but nothing. Nothing but warmth and marveling at the feel of her skin beneath his fingers. He slid his fingers down to the underside of her wrist and felt the double beat of her pulse. Still nothing. He had flinched away from her in the Library until he'd taken her hand and it had felt right. Her hand always felt right in his.

He wet his lips and tried to glare at her as he absently caressed her wrist. Younger, wilder her would had been all over him by now, but not his professor. She knew him better than he knew himself, and he realized she wasn't going to initiate things. Not this time. She did in the past more often than not and would in the future. But this time, she was leaving the decision about touch in his hands.

Right. Well. _Brave heart, Doctor._

Still holding her wrist with one hand, he lifted the other to her cheek. The skin was soft here as well. She hadn't bothered with makeup, and he was glad for it. He thought of the last time he'd kissed her, how that time on Trenzalore stood out sharply among the murkier memories of his previous self. He remembered he'd cupped her face, stroked the apple of her cheek, and tried his very best not to cry. He swallowed, not quite sure what to do and was pretty sure he was about to cry now.

"It's been awhile since I've run this rodeo," he admitted hoarsely.

"Don't worry," she replied softly. "It's been the same for me."

She tugged him closer by the lapels of his jacket. He reached out with his mind, felt hers wrap around his and draw him in even as he remembered how this went and finally, _finally_ kissed her. He cupped her face as her arms slid around his waist, and as his body poised to recoil in revulsion, her mind soothed his. _There, there,_ she coaxed mentally, and that's when he realized how she'd managed to get his head into her lap as he slept. A human wouldn't be able to do it, and Missy sure as hell wouldn't get close enough despite her own physical assault on him. Just his wife. His long-lost wife who'd been restored to him, _and it wasn't a dream_.

He waited for passion to sweep over them both, to propel them to mate. And it was there, simmering in his blood for the first time since Trenzalore the first go-around. But instead of tearing at clothes, he eased back. His senses were tingling, his trousers were suddenly too tight, and he saw the high flush of arousal in her cheeks. Before he could do anything, she slid off the couch in front of him. He started to ask what she was doing, but her hands sliding up his thighs derailed his thoughts. He didn't think he could possibly get any harder than he was at the moment, but then her deft fingers were working his fly open and _oh fuck_.

His head tilted back as every nerve ending lit on fire. Part of him wanted to shove her away, but instead his hands curled in her hair, urging her on. He wasn't going to even try to pretend to have some semblance of control. It had been more than a thousand years since he'd felt her touch, of wishing and hoping and longing and daydreaming and _fuck, fuck, fuck_. His hips bucked sharply as he thrust into her mouth and came with a hoarse shout. His breath came in short, hitching gasps as he stared at the high ceiling of the study. He felt her pull away, and knew he needed to fix himself, but he didn't have the energy to move.

His conscience took its turn, reminding him that this sort of thing was a two-way street, and he came back to himself to find her already gone. He pushed off the couch to see her by her desk, papers back in hand as she sorted stacks. He froze, not quite sure what to do, then ordered himself to keep going. He would bloody well touch his wife, and no one, not even his own body, would persuade him otherwise.

He pressed himself into her back, nudging his hips against her as he encircled her waist with his arms. He tugged up her jumper until he was at the waist of her jodhpurs. Hoping he wouldn't make a complete fool of himself, he managed to work the buttons open and push them down just far enough until his fingers slid into wet heat. He jerked his hand away in reflex and wound up smacking it against the side of her desk.

"Sweetie, you don't have to-"

"Shut up," he ordered, shaking out the pain. "I'm not going to leave you thinking this was the dullest experience of your life."

She looked over his shoulder at him, looking almost cross. "I'm not going to make you do something you don't want to do." She pulled away and started to fix her clothes. "It's OK."

"No, it's not," he said hoarsely. She turned around as if to leave, and he stayed her by loosely grabbing her hips. "It's not OK. I want to do this. I don't know what my problem is. I've computed it and analyzed it and Clara has nagged me to death about it. She thinks she could hug me back to her young man in tweed."

"It doesn't work like that." She absently patted the area where his bow tie had once rested.

He leaned in, resting his forehead against hers. "Help me, wife," he whispered. "I don't think I care bear leaving this room without …" He couldn't finish it, but she knew what he was trying to tell her. She always knew.

She closed her eyes, and he felt her mind extend toward his again. He embraced it and her fully. Her thoughts entwined with his own, and for the first time, she held nothing back. Oh, there were a few shadowed places. Those, he assumed, was where her younger self had met future versions of him. As for him, he threw open all the doors. She knew his name. She knew the indescribable pain he'd experienced through centuries. She was his steady light in the darkness, the candle that had never extinguished - even when he thought her dead. She accepted all of him, even this, and he knew why he couldn't bare to touch anyone else. It had been a cruel reminder that he would never hold her again.

The universe apparently didn't agree with that. So it brought him the one gift he didn't deserve.

He stepped between her legs, boosting her onto the desk as his lips found hers. He could see her memories now, of them together in good times and bad. His hands made their way beneath her jumper as they kissed, then down to her jodhpurs once more. This time, she helped him, removing them entirely and stripping off the rest of her clothes as he made quick work of his own.

He repeated his earlier move, hand sliding between her legs as he breathed into her neck. He closed his eyes, willing himself not to focus on the touch but of the hitching moans as she wriggled against him, hips thrusting ever so slightly. He pulled her closer and slid two fingers into her with one hand as he rubbed her clit with his thumb.

She wasn't quiet about any of it, and each cry ignited his blood once more. Impatiently, he angled her hips and slid into her. Eyes locked on each other, she came with a sharp cry on his second thrust. Despite what she'd done to him earlier, he followed her into oblivion seconds later as their minds coiled tightly around each other.


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter 4_

"I have a question," the Doctor said.

They had managed to make it back to the coach before sliding onto it in a semi-clothed, boneless heap. They weren't snuggled into each other, but his hand was in hers, and neither seemed to be inclined to let go of the other.

River closed her eyes and rested her feet on the coffee table, thoroughly content with the universe. "What's that, sweetie?"

He squeezed her hand at the endearment, his thumb running over her knuckles. "You said it'd been awhile for you as well. Every book ever invented, and well … we've always had an understanding regarding such things."

"You mean why didn't I re-enact the Kama Sutra and its 16 million translations with every literary hero I've ever fantasized about?"

"I'm OK with it as long as it wasn't Christian Grey."

River snorted. "I deleted that series from the Library as soon as Charlotte allowed me access to help catalog the system."

The Doctor grinned. "That's my wee psychopath."

"Try your wee savior of the literary world. As for your question, I tried. I honestly tried. I wanted to, desperately." River sighed. "You noticed I was dressed all in white, yes? CAL envisioned me as an angel, a motherly figure. Which was all well and good until I attempted to satisfy any adult desire."

The Doctor's brow furrowed. "Every book in the universe and it was censored?"

"Not the books. _I_ was censored, and I wasn't the only one. All the inhabitants were - the 4,022 before and the members of my team left behind. CAL is the mind of a child, Doctor, and a young one at that. Of course the Lux family was going to ensure everything remained PG-rated. Any time there was a hint of intimacy, the system leaped ahead in time. You never needed the loo, didn't need to shower or change a baby's diaper or deal with vomit. It also extended to sex. Intercourse, masturbation, fellatio, all of that was omitted. The same thing with murder, though you saw the end result. The most action I had while I was a data ghost was with you on Trenzalore."

"You were stripped of your sex drive?" he gasped at her.

"It was censored," River repeated. "I felt the urge, then there was the system skip, and then the urge was satisfied. Not as well as you and I just did, but CAL is oriented to keep the inhabitants happy. That included not being horny all the time."

"Huh," he said, and they lapsed back into a comfortable silence. His thumb continued to run over her knuckles as they lazily watched her bra dangle from a lamp, neither of them quite sure how it got there. "I have more questions."

"I'm sure you do, but I have one of my own."

He arched an eyebrow. "You do, do you?"

She smirked. "I am allowed."

He lifted her hand to his lips, kissing it softly, secretly thrilled at his desire to keep touching her. It was like a millenia of touch-denial debt had suddenly come due, and he couldn't keep his hands off her. He wondered if she was up for more, well … maybe they could make it to an actual bed this time. "Well then, wife, what is your question?"

"How do you believe Missy is involved in all this?"

The Doctor jerked into an upright position, dropping her hand. "What?"

River sighed, clearly considering their romantic interlude at an end. She got to her feet and located up her jodhpurs and knickers. She frowned at the ruined scrap of lace and tossed it in the bin before sliding the pants on over bare skin. "You have a theory about Missy being involved with my getting out of the Library."

"I haven't told you anything about her," he shot at her.

"Oh, but you have, my love. You partially wrote out her name in the med bay." She ticked it off on her fingers as she retrieved her bra, glancing around for what he presumed was her shirt. Shrugging, she grabbed the Doctor's and pulled it on. "You also have questions about her tied to Gallifrey on the board in the console room. The TARDIS data banks filled me in on the rest, how she's the Master regenerated into a woman. Fascinating. I've only read about it in books."

He scowled at her. "I wanted to tell you about all that."

"You weren't fast enough." River collected her tea mug and moved to the small sink in the lab area. "Sweetie, I want to know how I got out of the Library with regenerations just as much as you do. While you were pitching your fit-"

"I was _not_ pitching a fit," he snarled as he found his trousers. "Did you really have to steal my shirt?"

She ignored him. "-I looked up data on Missy. So, show me where your questions are and we'll go over them together."

The Doctor grumbled and threw his hands in the air and pulled his undershirt over his head. Muttering under his breath, he snatched up his coat and stalked out the door. River smirked, glanced at the clock on the wall, and counted off the seconds.

" _Doctor!"_ Clara's outraged shriek echoed through the room. " _Do up your trousers and find a shirt, for God's sake!"_

River laughed and walked out of her office to see the Doctor fixing his trousers while Clara stared red-faced at the wall, muttering under her breath.

"I sincerely hope this meant the problem you came to my flat to address was dealt with," Clara grumbled.

"I've made some progress in that area," he boasted with a crooked smirk, and Clara glared after him as he strode away from them, swaggering just a bit.

Minutes later, they stood around the chalkboard as the Doctor and Clara gave River a brief overview of what happened with Missy, explaining the Nethersphere and how she had created Cybermen to build the Doctor an army.

"So the question is," the Doctor said as he scribbled out more notes on the board, "why would she approach Ellie Oswin?"

"Shouldn't you be asking a different question?" River asked.

"I have lots of questions. Someone told me not that long ago to just to pick one," he shot back.

River arched an eyebrow and very nearly rolled her eyes. "The question you should be asking is, what did Ellie Oswin tell me?"

The chalk halted in mid-scribble. The Doctor just stared at her for a moment, then made a sweeping gesture with his free hand. "And would you share with the rest of the class then, Professor Song?"

Now River rolled her eyes, which caused Clara to turn away to hide her snicker. "We were in _The Secret Garden._ It's one of Charlotte's favorite books, and she identifies with the story. One minute, I was at a tea party in the garden and the next, I was in CAL's control room with Ellie. Ellie had been my graduate assistant for two years, but I didn't link her to Clara until I saw her again."

Clara turned back to River. "So you knew she was one of my echoes?"

"Yes, it was obvious now that I knew what to look for, plus I had met the real you and knew what happened to you on Trenzalore. Dozens of echoes splintered among the Doctor's timeline, all to save him. Ellie told me how she'd been told what happened from Lux through his assistant. She didn't know the whole story though. I had to relay that to her."

"How did she take it?"

River nearly went with cheeky, but quickly switched tactics at the dismay in Clara's eyes. Instead, she smiled gently at her. "Quite well, all things considered. I think part of her always knew that this was her destiny, to save the Doctor."

"Though in this case, she saved _you,"_ Clara pointed out. She folded her arms over her chest and considered the aberration. "He was so lost without you," she murmured. "Didn't realize it then. Couldn't realize it. Not until … well, I can see that. Saving you saves him."

River nodded, pleased that Clara had figured it out. "She asked me if I would stay or go. There wasn't a choice."

Clara managed a wan smile. "Good. That's good. Because, you don't want to know what I'd done if you hadn't. So Ellie, did she just fade away?"

"I don't know. I wish I could tell you one way or the other, but we can check. Not only can we check, we _should._ I think it would be beneficial for everyone if we could talk to Ellie. We'll know her fate one way or the other then." River turned to the Doctor. "We can interface with CAL from the TARDIS. It'll spare us having to go back into the infested area."

"But it doesn't explain why Missy wanted Ellie to save you to begin with when Ellie's fate was always to save the Doctor," Clara pointed out.

"Missy wanted to raise an army for me," the Doctor replied. "Who better to lead such an army than the women who was born to kill me?" His gaze flitted to River, a slight smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "My wee psychopath, who fell in love with me instead. Missy would bring my wife back, and I would be forced to be grateful to her."

"So the regenerations came from her?" Clara asked.

"I think that was the original plan," River agreed. "But Ellie didn't come to the Library with Missy. The Doctor did."

"So who … oh. _Oh!"_ And Clara punched the Doctor in the arm. "You did, you idiot. Isn't it obvious? You even admitted you didn't know how many regenerations you have now. Of course you'd give some to your wife. Who else would it be?"

The realization hit her like a sucker punch to the kidneys. Of course. _Of course_. Suddenly, her mind filled with memories of Manhattan, of her tweed-bedecked husband giving her his already-dwindled regeneration energy to heal an insignificant wrist. Next to her, this new face of his twitched, and she knew he was thinking the same thing.

"I haven't given anyone any regeneration energy!" He held up his hands in self defense, backing away slightly. "No slapping, dear. I haven't done anything of the sort."

"Yet," River said tersely.

He narrowed his eyes at her, the brilliant blue suddenly going cold. "And even if I chose to do so, it's my bloody regenerations. I can give them to you whenever I want."

"The hell you will!"

"Try and stop me." The Doctor stalked away.

"He'll do it now just because you said he can't," Clara said, and ignoring her, River followed the Doctor.

* * *

It made such bloody sense that the logistics of it all had half worked themselves out in the Doctor's mind before he reached the console room. It would be little work to go back a bit before Ellie triggered the final program and make the necessary adjustments. Ellie had figured out how to switch places with River, so there had to be some sort of conduit that Ellie would hand off to ensure it happened. Stupid, stupid, why didn't he pay attention to the items she carried? He had uploaded River the first time via the sonic screwdriver he'd given her. He could pull off the same maneuver, infuse it with his regeneration energy, give it to Ellie so when the transfer happened she would …

River's hand slapped down atop his as he grabbed the first control he could see on the console. "Doctor," she hissed, "don't be a sentimental idiot."

"Too late," he shot back at her. "You already have the regeneration energy. It's a done deal. I just have to make sure it happened."

"Don't you dare," River ordered. "Don't you dare shorten your life to make mine longer. I'm not worth it. I've never been worth it."

"Yes," he bit out, "you are. I have no idea how much regeneration energy the Time Lords gave me on Trenzalore. I could have 13 lives or 130 or 13 million. I can certainly spare a small part of it for my wife."

"Or you can just have this one!"

"Don't be stupid, River, it's beneath you. Clearly I didn't, else you wouldn't have three more regenerations." He flicked a glance over River's shoulder at the monitor and saw they'd already landed. The TARDIS, bless her, had taken matters in hand once more and he was grateful for it. Things were building up to a quite smashing row, which really was quite normal for them. He simply didn't want to deal with it at the moment, so he pushed past River to stride back into the Library.

About a minute later, Clara emerged from the TARDIS holding a large lantern in each hand. "Just in case," she said, and placed one of the lanterns atop CAL's console, then another on a nearby table. "I figured we still had time before dark, but it never hurts."

The Doctor sat at the console, booting into the system as Clara rolled a chair next to him and straddled it.

"So, why's River angry?" Clara asked.

"None of your business."

"I suppose not, but neither one of you excel at quiet arguing. I think they could hear you two the next galaxy over"

"Shut up, I'm concentrating."

" _Doctor._ "

"Just shut up," he snapped and sighed at the wounded look in Clara's eyes. She looked very much like a kitten who'd had its paw stomped on at the moment, and he hated when she pulled that tactic of making him talk. So, he didn't say anything as he opened the communication channel.

River had always been touchy about this sort of thing, going back to when he had healed her wrist when she broke it and lied about it in Manhattan. If she refused to acknowledge why he gladly gave her his regeneration energy, then it was her problem, not his. He wasn't about to lose her again because she stepped on a banana peel and broke her neck while in one of the TARDIS's kitchens. OK, really, the chances of River stepping on a banana peel and breaking her head was quite low. Quite miniscule. He had a far likelier chance of doing so, but more in his last body than anything. It was a miracle more often than not that he survived to old age on Trenzalore.

"Oh," Clara breathed and suddenly rolled her chair away so she couldn't be seen, and the Doctor squinted at the monitor to see his companion's doppelganger, flushed and with a pirate's cap hanging off one side of her head, appear on the screen. He flashed a broad grin. "Ellie!"

"Doctor!" Ellie sweeped the hat off her head, tossing it aside as her smile lit up the screen. It was a bit more toothy than Clara's, but his friend also hadn't smiled very much in the past few months. "Oh, you're checking in! That's a new thing, Charlotte tells me. She said you never communicated at all when River was here."

The Doctor flinched and could feel Clara's glare. Had she not taken such care to keep out of sight, he was quite certain she would have smashed one of the lanterns over his head. "I need some information, Ellie. It's quite important."

"Of course! What do you need to know?"

"Have you ever heard of the Nethersphere?"

Ellie pursed her lips, then caught the bottom one between her teeth. "No, that doesn't sound familiar."

"Lux's assistant never told you about this?"

Ellie shook her head. "No. All she said that she had a backup installed in case something ever happened to CAL's database."

"Backup? Missy installed a backup?"

"Yes. Lux's assistant … I'm sorry, Missy, said she installed a special backup that would work both ways. If CAL failed, the hard drive she hooked up to it would kick in. But if that hard drive failed, CAL could sustain it. She assured me that the inhabitants of CAL would feel quite at home in the backup."

"The Nethersphere? She linked the Library to the Nethersphere?" Clara gasped, instinctively leaning in. She jerked back just in time, before Ellie could spot her.

"It makes sense. She probably created the Nethersphere from the same artificial core keeping the Library going, giving people virtual lives. She copied the program from CAL, used it to network the matrix slice she held. She would use that connection to copy River over, or have Ellie do so. But I got to her before she enacted that part of the plan." The Doctor swiveled his chair back to the monitor. "So is the network link still intact, Ellie?"

She nodded. "It has to be monitored externally."

"I'm checking right now." River's voice from somewhere to his right startled him, and the Doctor glanced up to see her standing at an auxiliary unit, hands flying over the keyboard. He hadn't notice her walk out of the TARDIS and wonder how much of the conversation she had heard. "It is. There's an unknown drive connected to the network. Shooting you the data, second screen"

The Doctor flipped on a secondary monitor, maintaining the connection with Ellie while he scanned the data River was sending through. "Checking the digital signature … that's it. That's the Nethersphere. It's still connected to the Library, still running because Missy didn't disconnect it before she died."

"So if the Nethersphere is connected to the Library …"

"We can enter it through the network connection, perform a data transfer, the reverse of what Ellie was going to do with River. Clara, this means we can get Danny back!"

Clara went pale. "What?"

"It's what you want, right? PE back in this world, go off and have three kids, live happily ever after."

"No!" Clara shot out of her chair, forgetting to keep out of view. "No, that's not what I want at all!"

"Doctor," River said softly, but he brushed off her warning.

"After everything that happened," the Doctor began, but Clara cut him off.

"Yes, after everything that happened, I finally moved on. _Finally_. I love Danny, I will always love him. But ... you won't understand. You'll never understand!" Clara leaned over and slammed her hand on the keyboard, cutting off the connection with Ellie. She spun on her heel and disappeared into the TARDIS, the slam of the door echoing through the empty room.

"Tell me," the Doctor said to River, "she didn't just act like a petulant teenager."

She sighed and folded her arms across her chest. "Doctor, just because you give Clara and Danny the means to get back together doesn't mean that's what Clara wants."

"Yes, it is! She _wanted_ him back. She was willing to break time to get him back."

"Well, that makes one of you," River muttered, and everything in the Doctor went cold.

"Sorry?" he said icily.

She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. "From what I understand, the two of you broke a hell of a lot of rules to give Danny the chance to come back. And he refused. He sent a lost child in his place. Am I right?"

He nodded.

"That's well and good and all. Probably in the cosmetic order of things, it was the right thing to do. But he had a chance to come back to Clara once and passed on it. How do you think it made her feel, after everything she risked for that one shot? She was- She had every reason to feel that Danny abandoned her."

"You thought I abandoned you."

"Yes." That simple acknowledgement nearly floored him. "You know that. We were both at Trenzalore in one form or another. Just because we're together again, just because we've had sex, it doesn't mean our problems have been magically solved. There are still issues in our marriage."

"Like what?"

River just stared at him, jaw dropped. She paced away from him, then suddenly whirled around and gestured in a way that made her look just like her mother. "Like the entire fact you put my living mind inside of a library database run by a child for eternity, never once dropping by to say hello in the thousands of years between then and now. That you _never_ asked for my consent regarding that, especially once you learned about Stormcage. You hate good-byes so much that you don't even bother checking with the people whose lives you're affecting to avoid them."

River moved into his physical space, and he wasn't even aware that he had risen from the chair. But despite their difference in height, the anger and betrayal in her eyes made him feel incredibly small. "You said it yourself on Trenzalore," she continued. "You didn't know how to say good-bye. You didn't acknowledge me, nor did you visit me because you didn't want to cause yourself pain without considering that maybe, just _maybe_ I might be hurting because part of me was alive and aware that I would never see my husband again. I look at you, and I still wonder if you ever loved me for myself or because you had an obligation to maintaining the timelines and to my parents."

"Maybe I thought you just wanted me because your mother had that crush on me," he shot back rather nastily. "I could have left you there." He gestured to the computer.

"No. I would have broken out. I can break out of anything, even the Library." She pivoted and walked back to the TARDIS. "Before you even dare criticize Clara for her choices, try taking a look in the mirror if you can stand it."


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter 5_

Once upon a time, there was an old, old man with a young, young face. And he sat upon a cloud and mourned for everything he had lost. He cried for his best friends, lost to time and ensnared in a web of paradoxes. _But you could have gone to New Jersey and taken the train_ , a small voice that suspiciously sounded like his wife echoed in the back of his mind. But he ignored it. Better to let them live happily in the past than succumb to a horrendous fate that would tear them apart permanently.

But for all the tears shed for his best friends, none equalled those that he cried for his wife. Even the mention of her first name cause his air supply to violently cut off, for his eyes to fill, and for his hearts to pound so fast and so hard that he fell to his knees until he could breathe again. Clara, innocent Clara, had spoken River Song's name once and had no clue of the power she wielded over him. River Song was his goddess, his Kryptonite. His greatest guilt now that Gallifrey was safe.

The Doctor stared into a reflective surface on the console, his features twisted and distorted. It was the closest thing to a mirror he could stand looking into at the moment. Everything River had said was the truth. All those years he could have at least sent a bloody fax into the datacore, and he had ignored her. Oh yes, there was one thing about the Library that both he and River knew – that it wasn't a fixed event. At any point he could have stopped it. But at what cost to all those people, to Donna? All because he was a selfish old man who wanted his wife. His wife who, like him at one point, had been on her last regeneration.

Instead, he had trapped her in a cage infinitely bigger, infinitely harsher than Stormcage and ran. He ran to escape the pain, to escape the obligation he had to her and her parents. Because if it hurt this much now, what if he saved River only to see her die again? The Doctor had been around humanity to know the stark truth. Rescuing River would only give her borrowed time. She was in the database core. She was safe. She would have freedom, he had blindly thought.

What a bloody arse he was.

The Doctor tugged at the collar of his shirt until the buttons loosened, and he didn't feel like he was about to choke on his own guilt. River was his equal, and he had done the one thing she asked him not to do – not to make the decisions for her. He remembered that night so long ago, when he told her about Donna. She, in fury, had ordered him not to make those choices on her behalf. He lied, because he had already done it.

He sank wearily to the steps, dragging his hands over his face before leaning forward to rest his arms on his knees. There was no way he could begin to apologize to River for this. Despite the guilt, he wasn't even sure he regretted the move. It had been done against her wishes, but he had saved her in the end. He had saved her, but he wondered if in the process, he had eradicated her trust in him.

* * *

River was angry. She was _so_ angry. Everything about her time in the Library bubbled close to the surface, and the only reason she didn't punch the closest wall was because of her love of the TARDIS. It wasn't her fault that the Doctor was a sodding idiot who didn't understand why she was so upset. She pressed the palms of her hands to her forehead, trying to ward off the oncoming migraine that was starting to throb. Talking to the Doctor about emotions and their marriage was like addressing a brick wall, though she was quite sure the wall was more responsive. River stomped up the stairs and was two seconds into the corridor when she heard the soft weeping.

Clara.

She closed her eyes and forced her emotions back behind her carefully erected walls and did her best to ignore the headache. The Doctor didn't know about Clara's miscarriage, about the deep sense of betrayal she felt over Danny choosing the life of an anonymous boy over hers. River understood how Clara felt. Self-sacrifice to save the life of an innocent? That was the Doctor's schtick, not hers. She would choose him each and every time. Even the act of saving the 4,022 wasn't from an altruistic part of her soul. It was because he was seconds away from incinerating his own hearts, giving up what remained of his regeneration energy to save them. Had he done so in his tenth body, he would have never met tiny Amelia Pond and learned about the crack in her wall. Her marriage, her very life, would be undone in a moment of self-sacrifice because he put the lives of innocent people above his own.

Sod that. River was firmly on Team Clara with this one.

She pivoted and walked back into the small library she had just passed, where Clara had curled into an oversized leather chair tucked among rows of books. She had a balled handkerchief in her hand, eyes red-rimmed from weeping.

"I'm OK," Clara muttered as River approached.

"No, you're not." When Clara scowled at her, River chuckled. "I'm not OK either," she admitted.

"No, you're not," Clara agreed and gestured to the door. "You two were having another quiet argument."

"It's one of our talents." River squeezed her shoulder. "Him Indoors is going to be flouncing in at any moment, and you're not quite feeling up to round two as of yet I take it. Follow me."

"OK." Clara unfolded herself and trailed after River. Instead of going back to her study, she directed Clara into another area of the TARDIS. This had sweeping gardens and a night sky with a large ball of energy, bubbling and sparkling as it hovered on the very edge of becoming a black hole. She sat on one of the benches and admired the spectacle.

"The Doctor called this the Eye of Harmony," Clara observed as she sat next to River. "I saw it once, or I think I did. It's a bit jumbled up in my memory, and I think it got erased at some point. Or maybe it's something that my echoes saw. I try not to think about it too much. I don't think I could handle it otherwise."

River had heard the same thing out of the mouths of a number of the Doctor's other companions.

"It's nice," Clara continued. "Didn't think looking at a supernova would be calming. But, there you have it."

River left Clara to her thoughts and wandered aimlessly through the familiar TARDIS corridors. She poked her head in various doors, idly noting any changes to the old girl. Clearly the eighth ice cream parlor she counted was a holdover from her baby-faced husband's time. This one didn't have anywhere near the love of sugar that he had.

She found herself back in their bedroom, rifling through the drawers and closet once more. Her first time in here had been looking for something decent to wear. Now she catalogued things with a shrewd eye, absently remembering the time that Amy had read Marie Kondo's organization books and had torn around the house determined to purge everything that didn't bring her joy. In the end, the only thing that Amy had purged was a ratty old jumper of Rory's, which caused quite the amusing row between them.

The Doctor had eyed River warily after that.

"You wouldn't do that, would you, dear?" He had asked hesitantly.

"Oh, sweetie, I don't need to take care of your packrat tendencies. The TARDIS does that all on her own."

River laughed to herself at the memory of the Doctor's horrified expression and his insistence that a complete inventory of everything stowed on the TARDIS be done at once. She wondered if it ever finished. Moving to a small data center that tapped directly into the center console, River called up the inventory program.

"Still running," she murmured, then shook her head. "Probably forgot what he was even doing with it."

Absently, River pulled open the top drawer of the nightstand on the Doctor's side of the bed and froze. She swallowed hard, then picked up the overstuffed fragile diary. Her sonic, which had laid atop it, rolled off and joined the other detritus in the drawer. She sank to the mattress, running her hand over the cover. She wondered what had happened to it, if he had ever bothered to do anything with it.

She wasn't sure how long she sat holding the diary, trying to work up the courage to open it. It was long enough that she startled when the mattress dipped beside her. She didn't even give a perfunctory protest when the Doctor took the book from her.

"When I took you to Darillium, when I waved you off on that trip to the Library, I curled into a ball on the floor of the console room," he said hoarsely. "I'm not sure how long I stayed there. Days. Weeks. Hell, probably months. Losing your parents was hard enough, but I couldn't get over losing you, even though I knew all along I would do so."

"I had the right to make that choice," she said, her anger drained as she visualized perfectly his younger self grieving her. "You knew all that time, and you never let me have a choice in my own fate."

"Shut up and let me talk." The Doctor took several breaths and stroked the cover of the diary. "I helped Clara because I never helped you. Because I thought I was too late to save you, and even if I had, it would only be to lose you again. You were on your last regeneration, and at the time, I saw no way around it. But I could save Danny for her. Maybe it wouldn't hurt so much if I did that. But when this happened, I never thought of not doing it."

She managed a tremulous smile.

"I'm sorry for letting you down," the Doctor continued. "You were right, every word of it. What you should be sorry for is not telling me before. I know, I know. That boy in the bow tie … he ran, didn't he? Not much for running in this face. I often wondered why I got this face, and I think it's because the face that this resembled one didn't run away. And he reminded me that I can't save the universe, but I can save one person. It took me awhile, dear, but I managed to finally do that."

He carefully opened the book, to a tiny paper envelope tucked between the final page and the back cover. He opened it, shook the small gold band onto his palm. "You didn't have it on," he observed.

"No. I'm never quite sure which version of you I was going to meet. One who had done Darillium … or my odds were one who hadn't.

He took her hand in his. "May I?" His voice was barely above a whisper and so full of nerves that it was endearing. "I understand if you want nothing of this. Nothing of me. After everything I did. I was a selfish old man, my dear. I'll be selfish again."

"Do you know how long I was in there for? I stopped counting after the first few centuries. My memory was trapped for far longer than I'd been alive, and no matter what I did, I couldn't find a way out of it. I even tried to delete myself. Charlotte stopped me."

"River …"

"Shut up," she snapped. "It's my turn to talk. You thought you gave me freedom. Instead, you gave me an empty paradise without my husband, without my parents. You thought I had some crazy intimate bond with my team, and yes we were friendly enough. But they weren't my family. Amy and Rory had each other, always. I'm not naive enough to think you would have saved a copy of yourself to the datacore for me. It's selfish and stupid to leave even the chance of your enemies coming across that. But I had no one that knew me for who I really was. I was shoved so high on a pedestal that it was suffocating. This is what you saved me to, Doctor. A goddess mother-figure that wasn't me one bit. I played the role because there was nothing else to do."

"Then when I finally projected my echo out, you ignored me again and again. Do you know what it was like to see you fall in love with Clara, when I was standing there practically shaking you?"

"I didn't _love_ Clara," he shot back. "She's a child."

"Of course not. You're the Doctor. You don't do anything so small and ordinary as going around falling in love, not matter how much I … _people_ convinced you do love them."

Unable to keep still, River tore her hand away from his, pushed to her feet and longed for her blaster. She wanted to feel the hum of the weapon beneath her fingers, to take out a wall and maybe some of the frustration along with it. Because the Doctor was staring at her like he'd never seen her before, and maybe he hadn't. Something about being restored to this life, seemed to lance the rigid self control she kept on her emotions. Maybe it was the fact that instead of running, instead of babbling, he was staring at her in shock.

"Do you know how it feels to know that you're going around the universe doing whatever the hell you want and not giving a damn about me in that datacore? And now you say that losing me paralyzed you, but I was never gone. I was right there for you the entire time, all you had to do was send a goddamn email."

She turned away from him, squeezed her eyes shut and figured now would be the good time for a convenient interruption. "Loving you is like loving the stars. You don't expect a sunset to admire you back or a monolith to promise you forever. I know that. I _accepted_ it. I knew exactly what I was getting myself into on that pyramid. I knew it would end, and hell, it probably is over and I've been deluding myself these past day or so. There's no more pages in that diary, there's-"

"A monolith can't love you back."

She pivoted at his voice, stared into those blue eyes that were suspiciously bright. It was only then that she felt the moisture on her face, realized that she'd been crying the entire time.

He slowly got to his feet, clutching her ring. "Monoliths have been there for millions of years, through storms and floods and wars and time. Kind of like a non-sentient version of a Roman centurion. Now there's a role model for you."

Knowing he referred to the thousands of years that her father guarded her mother, sealed inside the Pandorica, River nodded.

"You're wrong, though."

"About which part of it?"

"A sunset can admire you back." He thumbed at his signet ring until it pushed up enough to reveal the worn plain band that matched the one he held. "I haven't taken this off since I regenerated," he admitted. "Everything ends, River, but not love. Not always. Wise woman once told me that. Lovely psychic. Popped back a few years and put a bug in Hanna and Barbera's ears that she'd be an excellent model for Velma on _Scooby Doo."_

 _"Doctor."_

"I digress." He moved to River's side and took her hand once again. "Everything ends, River. Every night is the last night for something, every Christmas is the last Christmas. I finally healed and moved on. I thought it was what you wanted for me."

"It is," River admitted. "But I was never actually dead, Doctor."

"No," he replied, "but the odds of retrieving you in one piece from the data core were statistically impossible. Do you understand how this could have all gone wrong? You could have been a vegetable. You could have died permanently."

"I was fine with dying, Doctor!"

"I'm not!" He yelled, then dropped his head to her shoulder. "The universe thought you were dead, but you never were to me. As long as you were in that datacore, you were alive and you were safe. You would outlive me. I can't bear to think of a universe without River Song."

The anger drained from River in such a rush that it left her nearly lightheaded. The Doctor's free arm locked around her waist, and she found herself awkwardly trying to comfort him because he refused to let go of her hand. "Sweetie, I will always be in the universe, as will you. We are made of stardust, all of us. At some point in history, you and I are having Christmas with my parents, discovering the Pandorica, flirting in Richard Nixon's White House. We're running around a number of planets violating a shocking amount of public decency laws. I'm with you, even when you have no clue about who I am."

She forced him to look up at her, choking up as tears streamed down his cheeks. "I'm going to die one day. So will you. There will be no coming back from it. I don't want happily ever after, Doctor. I just want to be happy in the time I have with you. Because it's worth it."

He smiled through his tears. "Melody Pond, it's always worth it with you."

He pressed his lips to hers, with no hesitation this time, no fumbling. She wasn't quite sure how much time passed as they held each other, forehead pressed to forehead when they weren't kissing. When they finally managed to pull apart, he arched his eyebrows, and she nodded. He slid the ring back on her finger where it belonged, where it would no longer be hidden by a tiny chameleon circuit to disguise it from younger versions of himself. He kissed her hand, kissed the ring on it, then let it go.

"I forgive you," River said, admiring her hand, then fisting his jacket and yanking him until they were nose to nose. "If you _ever_ do that to me again, I _will_ remove your organs in alphabetical order," she hissed.

The Doctor smirked. "Which alphabet?"

"I hate you."

He kissed her nose. "No, you really don't."

* * *

 _Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading this story!_


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